Although it is not VLC,
this guide (scroll down for building instructions) guides you through compiling a hardware accellerated mpv, which can be used with SMPlayer.
I built it a few weeks ago, so I don't remember completely, but I think you can skip that first step (sub "pacman -S" for "apt-get install" obviously!) if you have "base-devel" installed. Also, I used -j3 flag at the rebuild step ... I don't remember where I read the suggestion that its wise to leave a core free to kill something if it goes awry. It added a little time, but I left it alone all day anyway, so no matter.
Also, I had a fan blowing on it so it didn't overheat during the compile, just in case.
This same person has a
lengthy musing here, that describes how to use SMPlayer with mpv.
Also, if you need to stick with VLC, it works very well with SDL as the video decoder. Not hardware accelerated, but very efficient with the CPU.